Young Adult Catholics

Hard to believe, but we’re less than two weeks from the beginning of Advent. And only ten days now from that High Holy Day of Consumerism known as “Black Friday” — as well as its cultural counterpoint, “Buy Nothing Day” (or, alternately, blogger Jason Evans’ “Make Something Day“).

Personally, I’m all for anything that helps drive the moneychangers out of our Feast of the Nativity. It feels somehow indecent to start decorating for Christmas before we’ve quite finished with All Souls (to say nothing of Thanksgiving).

But after reading about “Make Something Day” on the Sojourners blog, I found myself thinking of other ways to celebrate the start of the cultural Christmas Season.  “Donate to Your Local Food Pantry Day”, maybe? Or “Visit a Shut-In Day”?

These are just a few off the top of my head; I’m sure creative Christians everywhere could come up with plenty of ideas to reclaim our holy day.  The point is to remember what one of our contemporary prophets said so eloquently:

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

While most people I interact with are excited about Obama’s win last Tuesday, I certainly have heard from some that are not.  But I’m a firm believer in the Pollyanna way, that there is good to be seen even in bad situations. We only have to look hard enough and open our hearts and minds to seeing the positive.  As a hospital chaplain you can probably guess that I don’t advocate ignoring reality and living in la la land just because you don’t want to think about negative things.  However, at least in this election, there is much to celebrate regardless of affiliation, regardless of disappointments you may have. 

People saw candidates this year that represented them and their interests, because of things like their race, state/origin (go Alaska!), gender, service to the military or local community efforts.  People took stock of their values, reflected upon them, and made their voice be heard!  Indeed, they finally knew their voices could be heard.   

Early on in the campaign I was on a bus and beamed with joy at seeing a near 90 year old woman with a Hilary button on her sweet homemade knit hat.  I didn’t beam with joy because Hilary was my candidate of choice; I beamed because she held her head so high.  I imagined that she was feeling a new wave of dignity having a female candidate in the race (purely speculation of course).  I imagined she may even be voting for the first time like an 84 year old woman I saw on the news one day who finally registered to vote when she heard about Hilary’s bid for the Democratic nomination. 

Then another woman, my dear grandma, had quite a new experience this election as well. As the wife of a man whose family had been pretty involved in politics (as supporters, not candidates), she had voted one way her whole adult life. But this year she changed her mind and marched down to city hall for the sole purpose of changing her party affiliation, something she didn’t even have to do to vote as she pleased.  She even contributed financially to a campaign in her own name for the first time-and did so three different times at that!  I revel in my grandma’s freedom to change when everyone says that the elderly are stuck in their ways; she never bought into that, not now and not when she was young. I celebrate her making a personal, autonomous choice and valuing her own opinions. Not that she didn’t before (she’s no shrinking violet, trust me), but this year she was so excited that it seemed different somehow.   

This same grandma told me about an amazing discussion she had with one of her bridge partners after Tuesday’s election.  Her friend who is African American said, with tears streaming down her face, that for the first time in her life she finally felt like she wasn’t a second class citizen.  I had to repeat that in my head to see if I hat gotten that right–I had, and with that, it was my turn to cry.  I remembered the tear streaked faces I saw on the TV that night and how moved I was that they were so moved. 

How Obama kept from crying I’ll never know!  Let me ask you though, when have you ever seen people cry over an election?  Sure, Chelsea Clinton cried when her dad was elected, but we’re talking about thousands if not millions of people.  When did you last hear something so beautiful as a person who finally did not feel like a second class citizen? 

Of course, you must take this with a grain of Pollyanna sized salt, but have you ever been so touched?

There is no doubt that this year’s Call to Action conference lifted my spirit and strengthened my soul.  I know it has a way of doing that for others, too.  After all, our witness to justice in all its forms is palpable and alive, resilient and prophetic.

As I reflect back nearly a week after the conference’s end, I’ve pieced together a common theme, a thread of awarenesses that has risen in me since leaving Milwaukee.  Without knowing it then, this year’s conference was an invitation to dream - again!

This was born and came alive in a session about Joseph the Dreamer - a man marginalized and misunderstood by many during his time.  Yet, Fr. Marek Bozek eloquently spoke of Joseph’s, and all dreamers’, unique sensitivity to the surrounding world, their gift and charism of visioning, creativity, and innovation.

Who are the modern day Josephs? What are their dreams?

I imagine many of us in Call to Action circles find ourselves on thresholds of tradition and progress, and although not mutually exclusive, call us out of old frameworks, paradigms, and models of hierarchical church.  It does take dreamers like Joseph to fashion a different way forward – a just way forward for all.  Unless we are courageous enough to embrace dreaming and its implications we may never fully awaken and realize the active spirit within us. 

Will you dare to dream – again – with me?       

Fr. Bozek concluded his session by saying, “The dream makes you significant, not the difference.” Since hearing him, I’ve tried to re-imagine, re-envision, and re-focus my dreams. 

Like Joseph, what dreams of ours has God invited us to cultivate and nurture - even amidst, and perhaps especially because of, criticism and ridicule, oppression and suppression, challenge and controversy?

As the conference unfolded, bits and pieces of my dream were illuminated.  The beautiful tapestry of people, culture, traditions, languages, beliefs and so much more enlarged and enriched my dream.  My hunch is that if we all dialogued about our dreams – like so many before us - we would find intersection and convergence, interrelatedness and connection, interdependence and purpose. 

My hope for you is that seeds of big dreams continue to flow forth and bloom.  There is no ‘winter season’ in dreaming; only fertilize soil in which to stake new claims and dream new possibilities.

November 4, 2008 – no matter what side of the aisle you land – was a historic day.  Surely, it meant something different for our generation(s) as we did not live through the Civil Rights movement, but it was historic nonetheless.  In case you were under a rock, Barack Obama was elected president. 

In chatting with folks at this weekend’s CTA conference, I realized that November 4 could be for us what November 22, 1963 was for our parents.  Or even, what September 11, 2001 or April 2, 2005 has been for our generation.  It is a day that we will always remember where we were at when we heard the news. 

For instance, on April 2, 2005 when Pope John Paul II died I was surfing the web while listening to some history lecture at Catholic university.  I can feel myself sitting in that uncomfortable chair in the student union, dying to interrupt the lecturer with the news that flashed across my computer screen.  I did, in the end, restrain myself.  I will always remember that day.

So, I thought it might be interesting – in a totally non-partisan way, as historic events like this tend to distract us from the polarization of our society – to hear everyone’s November 4 stories. 

Where were you when you heard?

Here’s my story:

I was at a small, surprisingly uncrowded bar in DC with my partner, two of our faithsharing pals, and fifteen of our best friends (having only become best friends in bonding over CNN for the past five hours).  At 11 pm, when they announced that Obama had won, there was a silence that went over the place followed by tears, applause, and blueberry vodka shots.  After McCain and Obama’s speeches, we took a group picture – the whole bar, that is – and went on our way.  The metro was closed and no cab was in sight - which meant a 20 block walk home.  The streets were filled with people cheering and honking their horns (94% of DC voters happened to vote for Obama – though our vote doesn’t matter much).   It was slightly drizzling on our walk back but fun nonetheless.  When we made it home, I checked – of all things – folks’ Facebook status updates. Some of my friends expressed their joy, while other friends felt disappointed in California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas, and still other friends felt that Obama’s election was a threat to the causes they hold dear.  I went to bed with that feeling that something incredible just happened.  Fireworks were still going off in the distance. 

So, now it’s your turn.  Where were you?  I challenge you to stay away from slander against one candidate or another because – like I said before – this was a historic occasion no matter what your politics might be.  

(reflections on the CTA conference coming soon, but had to get this post out!)

I walked into one of my local bookstores today to see if I could order a specific book about Ashura and the battle of Karbala. “That’s the Shi’i blood-letting ritual!” the man behind the counter yelled loudly enough for the entire store to hear. Oh, and he’s Jewish, so this makes this even more of a politically incorrect joke.

There are customers behind me and as I begin to tell him that Ashura is not just a blood-letting thing, and why there is a remembrance in the first place (the slaughter of Husayn, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, well as the deaths of his friends and family, not to mention the grief of his sister Zaynab – and all those left behind…and that all this grief is collective and present…and the future…but no, it’s all about blood-letting, yeah). Oh, and that there are some Shiah who don’t do that. He says, “I’m sure most Shiah think it’s an abominable practice.” Uh, I’m not an expert in Shiasm here and I didn’t really know what to say, but I spit out: “Well, there are plenty of people who think those practices are fine, too. And that’s o.k.”

Jalal Toufic says, “the preservation of the events of Ashura exist on two levels….in the world of the imagination…as well as the labyrinthine temporality of the realm of underneath, where al-Husayn would run the risk of forgetting who he is, of forgetting himself; in historical time, through the bodily and emotional tortures endured during the . … commemorative ceremory, which are the means to breed in the human being, a forgetful creature (“And verily we made a covenant of old with Adam, but he forgot, and We found no constancy in him” Qur’an 20:115) a historical memory. But the memory that the ceremony of Ashura is trying to maintain is not only that of the past, but the memory of the future, that of the . . . coming Mahdi . . . and the promise of Twelver Shi’ites to wait for him.”

In talking about Catholicism, Carolyn Walker Bynum writes: “Medieval people [and I would add folks into the present --THR] . . . manipulated their own bodies for religious goals. Both male and female saints regularly engaged in what modern people call self-torture – jumping into ovens or icy ponds, driving knives, nails or nettles into their flesh, whipping or hanging themselves in elaborate pantomimes of Christ’s crucifixion. Such acts were…frequently described as union with the body of Jesus….a way of approaching God.”

I have a dream about goldfinches. My art history friend says that goldfinches, because they ate thistle seeds, they are associated with Christ’s passion and crown of thorns. The goldfinch in art occasionally represents Jesus and Mary’s knowledge that he will be killed. This is a lot like the Prophet Muhammad, Husayn’s mother Fatima, other members of the family, and finally, Husayn, knowing that his own death was pre-ordained. The goldfinch is offered to Christ by John the Baptist as an option, much like the option God presented to the Prophet Muhammad about his grandson, much like Fatima’s own heart was pierced as a mother and a daughter many times – even though she knew it was coming. In Holy Family, painted by Barrocio, John the Baptist holds the goldfinch high enough out of reach so a cat won’t eat it. My friend told me that the goldfinch weeps in some pictures, at the sorrow of Jesus. I’m not sure. I know Husayn’s horse wept.

Read more »

As good as many of the charitable organizations are, there is only so much they can do to help others.  The greatest potential for helping the less fortunate still lies with the government.  That’s why with the new administration about to take over it is increasingly important to insist that they work on the problems that affect those who can’t help themselves.

Here, in no particular order, are some things I hope the new administration and Congress will take seriously and begin to undertake as soon as possible:

• Tackling poverty issues, home and abroad
• Implementing effective measures to stop global warming - effective, meaning more than just some milk toast mandate for cars to raise their fuel standards a few miles per gallon by 2080
• Creating a stable food system involving local foods and a plan to get more farmers onto the land
• Abandoning agressive warlike tendencies for strong diplomacy
• Implementing a ban on country music
• Working on getting Led Zeppelin back together
• Establishing an inquiry into why the Kansas City Royals are so bad

Am I asking too much?  I know how politics work, so maybe this does come off as a little naive.  I’m still riding high on the feeling of post-election hope though.

By the way, the last three should be top priorities.

I spent last weekend at my first annual CTA conference, and it was probably one of the best “impulse buys” I’ve ever made (I was bemoaning not having the money to attend, when I got an email warning me that there were only 24 hours remaining for the “early bird” price, and I felt compelled to register within those 24 hours).

The conference inspired me to want to do more around the issues I care about. When I attended Father John Dear’s session, I wanted to spend more time in non-violent protest; when I attended a session by Dolores Huerta, I was overcome with the magnitude of the task set before me if I really wanted to make a difference, and for a moment I felt a bit of despair. I thought, I want to confront these injustices in the church and in the world, but what can I do? I’m perpetually short on time and on money, and I’m so introverted that community organizing, protests, or “real world” actions are draining for me. Like most young people, I want to change the world, but I’m now old enough, and know myself well enough, to know that I’m a prime candidate for activist burnout. And once burnout sets in, what good am I to anyone?

I almost laughed when the answer came to me, perhaps because it was so obvious: I can write. I don’t remember when I learned that a letter to an editor or to someone in power was an option for confronting injustice, but I do know I’ve been writing such letters since I was in middle school. I haven’t written one for a long time, but my resolution is to use the gift God did give me to be my activism once again. My gift is not “less than” because it’s practiced in solitude; there are others God has gifted with the ability to speak eloquently, to talk back, to organize actions, and I thank God for that. But I think we sometimes forget that activism can come in many forms, from refusing to buy something to marching on the Capital. And our God has gifted each of us with the ability to do this work, in our many beautiful, diverse ways.

Habemus presidentum. The results are in; the long and arduous journey to the White House culminated on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 with the election of Barack Obama, the first term senator from Illinois. Also at the end of the road is both war and senatorial veteran, John McCain, senator from my home state of Arizona. While this campaign has endured since the last presidential election, and the path has been wrought with embittered sentiments on both sides, it seems clear that now will be a time of reconciliation for the United States.
Irrespective of the outcome, either Barack Obama or John McCain would inherit defunct economy, bruised relations with those abroad, a war without end in sight, and a broken nation. The Bush Administration has left a poor state of affairs for the presidential successor, and the American people yearning for hope.
It seems clear that the American people had become disenchanted. And this election cycle wore on and was brutal from the neck-to-neck Democratic primary between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, to the general election throwing McCain into the mix.
The general election was no less brutal. The three presidential and the vice-presidential debates evidenced the tension between both camps. It was constant point-counter-point, diverting from questions (or evading them altogether), and of course accusations.
Ironically, the landslide election of Barack Obama did not yield a backlash from the opposition (or, at least not from the candidate). I was at the celebration for the congressional reelection of Harry Mitchell, in the district that is home to my alma mater, ASU. At approximately 9:00 PM, Mountain Standard Time,
Obama was announced the clear winner and president-elect. It was the first time in the latter half of my lifetime that the results of the presidential election were revealed the evening of the same day that ballots were cast. Shortly later, the media brought viewers to the Arizona Biltmore, mere miles from my location, to witness John McCain’s concession speech.
Senator McCain delivered a humble address acknowledging his defeat. Rather than be demoralized, he accepted responsibility for the loss, and stated that the American people have spoken… “Quite clearly.” McCain never once cursed Senator Obama, and to his credit, exhorted that his side support the newly elected president. Senator McCain affirmed that he would be there to help President Obama in the coming term. McCain promoted unity. While I personally have never had much common ground with John McCain, I have never been prouder to call him my senator.
The evening shifted to Grant Park in Chicago where Senator Obama would give his acceptance address. His words were no less inspirational. While he acknowledged that the win was a great victory for the Democratic Party, Senator Obama noted that he did not receive everyone’s vote but vowed to listen to the needs of the many with the statement, “…And I will be your president too.”
Irrespective of the events of the past eight years, and all our differences, both sides have encouraged unity. This nation under God will need to meet the challenges of the future together, because we are stronger as a whole. And this nation, this body, is in profound need of healing.
Much like the Church is the Body of Christ, despite our differences, we are one nation. As a people, we are united. As a Church, we are “universal”.
While the Catholic vote was relatively evenly split, slightly in favor of Obama at 53% according to USA Today, this indicates that there is a diversity of opinion within the Church. But we are still one Body in Christ. We are all broken. And we will receive this reconciliation together, as one.

The other day my husband and I visited Difunta Correa, a shrine to a young women known as Difunta—a woman who died of thirst in the desert outside San Juan, Argentina.  But when they found her body, three or four days after her death, her baby was still nursing from her breast. 

Now, I have no idea of the science.  One young woman from Spain argued to me that it wasn’t a miracle—wouldn’t the milk stay in the woman’s breast anyway?  Another woman, from San Juan, found the whole thing ridiculous and couldn’t believe that we’d spent the day going to the shrine rather than to the supposedly spectacular Valle de la Luna.  And then she said, “Oh, if my mother heard me now, she’d kill me!”

I had never seen anything like this before.  Perched on the side of a hill, there are these five houses devoted to people giving things for things in their lives they credit to Difunta Correa—houses, husbands, businesses, children, graduation, pets…the list felt literally endless.  And then there are these stairs up to the top of the hill where the shrine is.  Located exactly where Difunta was found dead, but nursing her baby, in 1841 are two panoramas of the story.  Surrounding this are countless little houses giving thanks to Difunta.  I saw the top of a car painted in thanksgiving to Difunta, license plates from Florida, a 30-something man with a tattoo of Difunta on his shoulder posing in front of the shrine.  It was incredible.  And I’m told that there are plenty of people who make the trek up the stairs on their knees. 

I’ve heard of shrines like this, but never seen anything like it before. I have to admit that I wanted to go see the shrine in the interest of seeing kitchy, unique religious expressions.  I expected to be cynical. 

Instead, I was blown away by the sincerity of it.